Arrest Made In Robberies Of Elderly

A Brooklyn man who allegedly robbed an 85-year-old woman — and is suspected of robbing 11 other elderly New Yorkers this summer — is in police custody, thanks to the "long memories" of a veteran detective, police said yesterday.

Cornelius Abson, 36, a resident of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, was arrested Wednesday for choking Lillian France in a Crown Heights elevator last Thursday and robbing her of $900. Police say he implicated himself in that crime, as well as the July 11 robbery of a 67-year-old man in Flatbush.

Yesterday afternoon, Abson was charged with robbing a total of five elderly Brooklyn residents. Officials said lineups are being conducted to determine whether he also was responsible for seven other violent robberies in the area since June 27.

At a news conference yesterday, the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said the information that "broke the case" came from an officer who had not been assigned to investigate it: Detective Matthew Walker, a 17-year veteran of the police force.

In 2002, Detective Walker arrested Abson for a crime similar to the one committed against Ms. France. Abson was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison and released in May.

When Detective Walker learned of the circumstances of last week's attack and saw publicly released surveillance footage of it, he said he immediately contacted the officer assigned to the case.

"I think I have your man," Detective Walker told the officer, according to Mr. Kelly.

After days of surveillance at Abson's Brooklyn home, police arrested him around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the corner of 71st Street and York Avenue in Manhattan, where he was working as a street cleaner in a work-release program.

Abson came quietly and voluntarily wrote a letter of apology to Ms. France, according to an officer who questioned him, Detective Maureen Sheehan. "It said he had a drug habit and that the person that did this is not necessarily the person that he is," she said.

A member of the City Council who represents the area where Ms. France was robbed, Letitia James, said the arrest made for "a great day in the neighborhood."